The Gardeners Almanac

The place to find out what to do in the garden this week
My Back Garden

Garden Hand Tools


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Week Numbers

Garden Tools

Bulb Planter

Garden Dibber

Garden Fork

Garden Hoes

Garden Rake

Garden Spade

Tool Maintenance

Hand Fork:

Non-stick coated type

This small but sturdy hand tool is not an essential tool,but it is a useful tool to have for the aftercare of your plants.

Its best attribute is: it can get into places where the garden and border forks can't.

It is ideal for thinning out and transplanting seedlings in both the ornamental and vegetable garden.


Basic advice would be; buy the best you can afford.


Points to look for:


Hand Trowel:

A Two Trowel & Fork matching set

Trowel & Fork Set

A pointed & Round ended Trowel

Two slightly

Different Shaped Trowels

Unlike the flat bladed trowel used by builders, the Garden Trowel is scoop shaped.

Some would consider this digging tool to be as essential a tool as the spade, and like the spade, good quality should be your guide when buying one.



Secateurs:

This is another one of these hand tools that although not essential is useful to have around.

Anvil secateurs were rubber coated handles

There are three different blade designs: Anvil, By-pass and Parrot-Beak.


Anvil Pruners: have only one blade, which closes onto a flat surface.


Plastic Coated By-Pass Secateurs


By-pass Secateurs: work like a pair of scissors, where the two blades pass by each other to make the cut.



Plastic coated Parrot Beak Secateurs

Parrot-Beak Secateurs: are not as common as the previous two.



Overview:

When buying secateurs the things to look for are;



Daisy Grubber:

Fork ended grubber purposely bent to give leverage

Straight fork ended grubber with leverage attachment

This another of those tools that although not essential, can be quite useful when you are weeding, as they are designed to get down to the bottom of the weeds root system.

This is particularly useful if the weeds being removed have a deep tap root.


Unlike the Hand Fork these are useful when removing pernicious weeds from a lawn,as they can do the necessary without much damage to the lawn.

They come in various shapes and sizes and are generally designed to lever weeds out, rather than dig them out, thus causing minimal disturbance to the area around the weed/s.